Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Ancient ruins are discovered with a map to an alien world. Believing it to be the origins of humanity, a team sets of to find the alien home planet. But after they land, they discover they may have imperiled humankind.

John Carter is a civil war veteran who awakes to find himself on another planet. But he soon finds out the inhabitants are bracing for war. After saving her life, her falls in love with a princess while trying to stop a deadly conflict.

It’s the end of an era, tonight is the end of David Tennant’s Dr. Who run. The conclusion to The End of Time premieres tonight (Sat. 1.02.10) on BBC America. To celebrate BBC America is having a Dr. Who marathon all day today, showing some of the best episodes from the last 4 seasons and re-running the last few movies. Personally, I think Tennant should have left at the end of Series Four, the 3 “movies” they ran in the last two years have been pretty pointless. I’m real curious to see The End of Time though and will try and get you a review tomorrow.

It’s ironic that a movie that isn’t based on an actual videogame should come closer to feeling like a videogame. Gamer is the latest film from the Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor team responsible for the cinematic equivalent of a shot of adrenaline to the heart that is the Crank series. If you didn’t care for the brash, crass, vulgarly smart and demented rush that was Crank [or Crank: High Voltage, for that matter], you probably won’t like the in-your-face assault of Gamer, either. But if you want to see a movie that really gets videogames – and aren’t afraid of a little scathing satire and a touch of romance – Gamer could be just what you’ve been looking for.

Airlock Alpha.com [formerly SyFyPortal.com] announced the winners of its fan-voted Portal Awards [formerly the SyFy Portal Genre Awards] this week. Favorites like Battlestar Galactica, Lost and The Dark Knight received few awards – though some popular movies and long-running series did take up the slack.

The biggest upsets were Doctor Who’s Catherine Tate beating out Galactica’s Mary McDonnell and Star Trek taking Best Movie over The Dark Knight. The complete list of winners follows after the jump.

Fans of Joss Whedon’s latest mind-blowing television series, Dollhouse, are in for a treat when they purchase the first season DVD/Blu-ray set. While all Whedonites are aware that there is a thirteenth episode, Epitaph One, made for broadcast in Europe and inclusion on the DVD set, 20th century Fox is also including the original, unaired pilot, Echo, in the site.

The set will also include three commentaries [though not on the unaired pilot] plus five featurettes. Series synopsis and complete list follow:

The eleventh Star Trek film, simply entitled Star Trek, is a genuine experience. Saying that they got it right is like saying that the sky is blue. Star Trek is the best Trek film – but that’s only half the story. It is a blockbuster in all the right ways: fascinating characters; robust action sequences; a relatable villain; stuff that gets blowed up real good [and yet, not gratuitously], and even some romance [between two of the least likely characters – one of the film’s bigger risks…].

Director J.J. Abrams and writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have produced a film that is set up in such a way that it does not need to navigate through forty-plus years of continuity – a film that can [and does] take chances. Instead of having to worry that any situation might rile Trekkers by flagrantly violating Trek continuity, Star Trek shuffles the deck with a unique twist on time travel paradoxes that allow fresh adventures within the positive core of creator Gene Roddenberry’s original concept. That it is “real” cannot be denied. It has the blessing of the Roddenberry family and Leonard Nimoy – and if Spock says it’s Trek, then it’s Trek. Plus, there’s no Big Red Reset Button [though there is the traditional red-shirted casualty-in-waiting…].

The fine folks at the SyFy Network (I really can’t type that without laughing because I keep thinking Sifee) are trumpeting the ratings numbers for the series finale.

Battlestar Galactica’s epic series finale, airing from 9-11pm on Friday, March 20, added to its phenomenal ratings with the inclusion of Live + 7 DVR data. Overall, the episode averaged a 2.2 Household rating, 3.1 million total viewers, 2.1 millon Adults 25-54 and 2 million Adults 18-49. This was the best performance for Battlestar Galactica in total viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 since the February 4, 2005 episode.In addition, among all SCI FI original series telecasts in the network’s 16 year history, this is the #5 most-watched original series performance in Adults 25-54 and the best performance for any original series on this measure since 2005, and is the #4 most-watched telecast in Adults 18-49. A limited-edition, uncut version of the highly-anticipated pilot of Caprica, the new drama series from the producers of Battlestar Galactica, will premiere on DVD from Universal Home Entertainment on Tuesday, April 21, 2009.

I’m not sure what SyFy (Lol) gains from releasing the DVD before Caprica airs on the channel. Ah, I guess this is truly it, the final Battlestar Galactica Post and it’s about the ratings. I can’t imagine there’s much more news about the show other than Caprica – which I’m counting as a totally different thing. But then again, I am scheduled to speak with David Eick sometime in the next few days. Anyhoo

The premise is simple: to stop and alien invader, the U.S. military releases its force of five captured monsters. The catch? It’s not as simple as they thought.

Although it took a veritable legion of writers [okay… five] to come up with the final script for Monsters vs. Aliens, like the group that pieced together Casablanca, these guys did good. Monsters vs. Aliens is the best 3-D CG B-movie monster mashup ever! [Okay… it’s the first 3-D CG B-movie monster mashup. Your point is…?]

It all begins when Susan Murphy [voiced by Reese Witherspoon] is hit by a meteor and grows to 49.5 feet tall. Before she knows it, she’s been abducted by the military and placed in a top-secret prison along with The Missing Link [Will Arnett], B.O.B. [Seth Rogen], Insectosaurus and Dr. Cockroach [Hugh Laurie] – who represent, in the same order, The 50-Foot Woman [Attack of the 50-Foot woman], The Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Blob, Godzilla/Mothra and The Fly. The alien[s] in question would be Galaxhar [Rain Wilson], a bored, four-eyed purple [might be] people eater who is looking for a little excitement. The plural would be his clones…

The human element comes mainly from Susan, who’s engaged to a rather full-of-himself cable weatherman with ambition, Derek Dietl [Paul Rudd]. Unfortunately, Derek is also not happy with the new Susan. Stephen Colbert does a great job voicing an overconfident but easily confused President of the United States, and Kiefer Sutherland gives just the right amount of humanity to balance the extremely hawk-ish warden/guardian of the monsters’ prison, General Warren R. Monger. There’s even a wistful bit of philosophy from the “you can’t home again” school of thought.

Monsters vs. Aliens is a fast-paced, laugh-filled ride. For the second week in a row, I’ve seen a movie where the trailer, good as it is, does not contain the best bits in the movie. Not only that, but the 3-D is amazing – though there are only a very few blatant gags, including one just a few minutes in. It’s as though directors Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman are telling us, “our 3-D could do lots these gimmicky gags, but we really don’t need to do that to tell our story.”

While the script might be a bit jokier than, say, the average Pixar film, there are character moments that would not be out of place in one – and the animation is, for the first time right up to the Pixar level. Then there’s that wonderful 3-D. It seems that each new 3-D film outdoes its most recent predecessor and that’s the way it is here. Part of the fun of seeing the screening I attended was in hearing the little kids in the audience gasp as the world of the movie drew them in. Even the mom next to me was entranced. Yes, MvsA works as an homage to B-movie monsters; as a coming of age story [Susan’s a late bloomer, eh?], and as a wild romp for the kids.

I thoroughly enjoyed Monsters vs. Aliens – and the audience gave it a standing ovation. Good thing I’d decided on my grade before they started standing [and blocking the screen while stuff happened onscreen during the credits…].

Battlestar Galactica, The SCI FI Channel’s signature series, concludes this evening [9/8C] with a 131-minute final episode. If you are planning to record the show, make sure to allow for that extra eleven minutes.

I have fond memories of the Witch Mountain movies of the seventies [though not so much for the TV version from 1995 – despite the presence of such cult icons as Vincent Schiavelli and Brad Dourif], so I approached this update/re-imagining with no little trepidation. Nostalgia can be a terrible thing.

Race to Witch Mountain is not as whimsically charming as those films, but it has a charm that comes purely from the performances of AnnaSophia Robb as Sarah; Carla Gugino as Dr. Alex Friedman, and Gary Marshall as eccentric conspiracy and UFO theorist [as if there’s any other kind in movies], Dr. Donald Harlan.

The kids appear in ex-cons Jack Bruno’s [Dwayne Johnson] cab seconds after he emphatically suggests to a couple of goons that he has gone straight, and give him a huge wad of cash to take them “that way.” The kids, Seth [Alexander Ludwig] and Sarah, are not from around here as they demonstrate when they pick up a convoy of tails. The two have come to Earth to obtain something that might rejuvenate their dead homeworld [injecting a glossing of relevance into the film that is pretty much forgotten forthwith].

The U.S. government wants them and it’s the team of Henry Burke [Ciaran Hinds], Matheson [Tom Everett Scott] and Pope [Christopher Marquette] that is closing in on them. To make matters worse, there’s a Siphon Warrior [Tom Woodruff Jr.] that wants to kill them [their planet’s military thinks it would be easier to just invade Earth and start fresh]. Friedman is a scientist who tries to bring science to a UFO convention [!] and Dr. Harlan is a fringe scientist who keeps track of government and UFO stuff from a foil-lined motor home.

Director Andy Fickman keeps things moving well enough that the holes in the scripts are virtually invisible – and peppers the film with quotes from/homages to any number of science fiction classics [two of which, Marvin the Martian and 2001 are even included in the trailer] to give the proceedings another layer. There are plenty of good moments for Johnson, too, but he really shines when he interacts with Robb and Gugino. I still haven’t figured out why he isn’t the biggest action star in history – he’s got tons of charisma and is an infinitely better actor than Arnold.

Even in a medium budget SF film, the effects have to be solid to let the audience buy into the proceedings and they are very good here. The suit and prosthetics for the Siphon Warrior are also cool – and the climactic fight between it and Bruno is a good one. The kids from the original movies, Ike Eisenmann [credited as Iake, here] and Kim Richards, have delightful cameos as a small-town sheriff and a waitress in the town diner.

In short, then, Race to Witch Mountain is an action-packed ride that will likely have kids spellbound and adults consistently amused. It may not be an interstellar epic, but it is definitely galaxies of fun.